Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Golden Tortoise Beetle





Many of you had commented on my header photo of the Golden Tortoise Beetle recently. And despite the fact I had posted some of these pictures on my other blog earlier, I'm posting them again.

So far, I have only seen this insect twice. The three pictures above are from my first sighting. I thought that someone's gold-coloured trinket had fallen on a leaf but the "jewel" moved!! I ran to get the camera and got these shots. I could have got more but it flew away...never to be seen again...at least for another year!!

The second sighting. You can see how tiny this golden bug  is. Scientifically this is known as Charidotella sexpunctata. I came across this wonderful article on this insect. You might find it interesting as well. Here's the link------------


Hope you have a great day!



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting and fun to see!

Sylvia K said...

Amazing! And such a beautiful little bug he is! I've never seen anything like him before. Thank you for sharing your lovely photos! They're always a delight!

Sylvia

Stephanie said...

This beetle is like sparkling :-D Love the unique body. Hope you will be able to sight many more in the future... more nice shots for us to enjoy ;-)

Ginny Hartzler said...

I had to click on these pictures, I'm glad you finally did a post on ths beetle! So the color is really a trick of the eye...these all look a bit different, too. What a great opportunity you seized!!!

SandyCarlson said...

That is just plain neat!

'Tsuki said...

That is such a pretty insect ! I just love it !

Shawn said...

Lovely shot's you've got there. I've not been able to spot one of these yet though.

Anonymous said...

Once I saw one I thought it was an earing stick to my table cloth. when look closer saw an insect.
When I came later it disappeared. Since then I'm trying to know more about this insect.

Unknown said...

My daughter found one today in our home in Durban South Africa. I would like to share the pic I took but don't know how to from my smart phone